Ground sloth
Ground sloths, giant sloths, or giant ground sloths were a group of sloths belonging to four families (Megalonychidae, Megatheridae, Nothrotheriidae, and Mylodontidae) which lived in the Americas from the Oligocene until at least 8,000 years ago, with an accepted later date of around 1550 years ago for the Caribbean species. They are generally considered to have been wiped out by human hunting. Ever since the first ground sloth fossils were discovered in the late 18th Century, it has been theorised that they may still persist in remote parts of the Americas, and a large number of cryptids have been identified as possibly being ground sloths, if they are real.Shuker, Karl (1995) In Search of Prehistoric Survivors''Eberhart, George (2002) ''Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology Cryptids which may be living ground sloths have been reported from , , , , , , , , , the , , , , , , , the , and . Historical investigations When the first remains of Megatherium were discovered in 1788, they were believed to have belonged to a living animal, an enormous mole which had burrowed to the surface by accident, and been scorched to death by the sun. According to Bernard Heuvelmans, after the fossils had been studied and revealed as a giant sloth, the King of Spain instructed explorers to capture a live Megatherium for him.Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals When Thomas Jefferson described the giant sloth Megalonyx (which he believed to be a lion) in 1797, he assumed the animal was still extant, and asked Lewis and Clark, as they planned their famous expedition in 1804 to 1806, to keep an eye out for living specimens of Megalonyx, as this would support his case. The saga of the Patagonian ground sloth, which occured at the turn of the 20th Century, caused a stir in Europe, and a number of explorers were dispatched to Patagonia in search of living ground sloths. Giant ground sloths Amazon Basin .]] Cryptids resembling large ground sloths have frequently been reported from the Amazon regions of , , , and . The most famous of these is the mapinguari, which is, however, also described as an ape-like animal. David Oren and the cryptozoologists of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, including Karl Shuker, believe the mapinguari may be a living ground sloth;Shuker, Karl (2010) Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times older cryptozoologists such as Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson, as well as a number of modern cryptozoologists including Loren Coleman and Dale A. Drinnon, believe it is a giant hominid. Much of the confusion arises from mixed-up accounts of different animals. Other, lesser-reported sloth-like cryptids of the Amazon include the kida harara of southern ,Beast Man: Nightmare of the Amazon the ujea of ,Virtual Institute of Cryptozoology An investigation into some unidentified Ecuadorian mammals the segamai of ,The New York Times - A Huge Amazon Monster Is Only A Myth. Or Is It? and the Orinoco giant sloth, which allegedly grows up to 5 metres (16 feet) long, and uses its large claws to browse from the tops of trees and dig up roots.Vašíček, Arnošt (1996) Planeta záhad According to Dale A. Drinnon, there have been consistent but generic reports of creatures resembling bear-sized ground sloths from the Amazon since colonial times.Frontiers of Zoology: More on Mapinguaris And Ground Sloths Marc van Roosmalen does not believe that a giant ground sloth could survive in the Amazon Rainforest because "in these areas most of the mainland plants are loaded with highly toxic secondary substances, useful to preserve the foliage from the action of the herbivores, so that the only highly "leafy" mammals are distributed along the large floodplains characterized by submerged forests. However, a giant sloth could not survive in these areas during the rainy season, as it was not suitable for climbing on tree tops".Il Mapinguari dell'Amazzonia | Criptozoo However, other researchers have not come to the same conclusions, and the mapinguari in particular is said to migrate to the mountains during the rainy season. Patagonia Although the first alleged evidence of modern-day ground sloth survival came from Patagonia, there have been few sightings of ground sloth-like animals from the region. The lobo-toro, a somewhat nebulous animal compared to a bullish wolf, was suggested to be a sloth by Bernard Heuvelmans, as was the succarath. Florentino Ameghino claimed that he had heard may stories of a:Ameghino, Florentino (1898) An Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia :"mysterious quadruped … in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz, living in burrows hollowed out in the soil, and usually only coming out at night. According to the reports of the Indians, it is a strange creature, with long claws and a terrifying appearance, impossible to kill because it has a body impenetrable alike to firearms and missiles." Ameghino also wrote that Ramón Lista, governor of Santa Cruz, told himself, his brother Carlos Ameghino, and several other people of a sighting he'd had of a large, hairy, pangolin-like creature:W. G. Ridewood (1901) On the Structure of the Hairs of Mylodon Listai and other South American EdentataHesketh-Prichard, Hesketh (1902) Through the Heart of Patagonia''Chatwin, Bruce (1977) ''In Patagonia :"He came across it one day during one of his journeys in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz , but in spite of all his efforts he was unable to cap- ture it. Several shots failed to stop the animal, which soon disappeared in the brushwood; all search for its recovery being useless. Lista retained a perfect recollection of the impression this encounter made upon him. According to him the animal was a a pangolin (''Manis), almost the same as the Indian one, both in size and in general aspect, except that in place of scales, it showed the body to be covered with a reddish grey hair. He was sure that if it were not a pangolin, it was certainly an edentate nearly allied to it." Hesketh Prichard, who was sent to Patagonia to search for the ''Mylodon, could not find a record of the encounter in any of the books written by Lista, who was dead by the time of the skin's discovery. Prichard did not believe a large animal could live in Patagonia's dense Valdivian forests, which he did not explore. However, he admitted that "in addition to the regions visited by our Expedition, there are, as I have said, hundreds and hundreds of square miles about, and on both sides of the Andes, still unpenetrated by man. A large portion of this country is forested, and it would be presumptuous to say that in some hidden valley far beyond the present ken of man some prehistoric animal may not still exist. Patagonia is, however, not only vast, but so full of natural difficulties". Central America Ivan T. Sanderson suspected that reports of cave cows from , describing hairy lizard-shaped animals, referred to medium-sized living ground sloths.Sanderson, Ivan T. (1969) PURSUIT Newsletter No. 5 In 1932 Thomas Gann, leading a British Museum expedition to the Río Azul, Quintana Roo State, Mexico, glimpsed a large animal with black, shaggy fur and a white mane which obscured its face running on all fours. He thought it resembled a giant ground sloth.Shuker, Karl (1995) In Search of Prehistoric Survivors''Eberhart, George (2002) ''Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology United States A handful of cryptids alleged to be living giant sloths have been sporadically reported from the , most notably the Appalachian ground sloth; the sheepsquatch, which is reported from a similar range, is also sometimes speculated to be a giant sloth.Frontiers of Zoology: Appalachian Groundsloths, and others Southwards The Beasts of Sherman, allegedly sighted in New York in the 1960's, were explicitly identified as white giant sloths by the eyewitness,Keel, John (1970) The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings''Hallenbeck, Bruce G. (2013) ''Monsters of New York: Mysterious Creatures in the Empire State and the Beast of Boonville was said to have been a giant sloth captured in Mexico which had escaped captivity.Cryptomundo >> Giant Sloth in Ohio River Valley? Certain researchers also theorise that Bigfoot may be a living giant ground sloth. Canada The saytoechin, a large, hairy animal with claws reported from the Yukon, was physically identified as a ground sloth by Native Americans, who selected an image of a ground sloth as the saytoechin.British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club Quarterly These informants also reported that a saytoechin had been shot in a lake by a white man; this man's story, independently told by himself, described a sloth-like animal with a 3-foot-long tail.Cryptid Profile: Saytoechin (AKA: Beaver-Eater) - The Pine Barrens Institute Small ground sloths The smaller semi-arboreal ground sloths of the West Indies are believed to have gone extinct much later than the mainland sloths, perhaps into the colonial era: according to Walker's Mammals of the World, their bones have been discovered in European middens alongside those of introduced domestic pigs.Frontiers of Zoology: West Indian "Devils" Yahus Yehos, small, ape-like creatures with claws, may represent living forms of these smaller, arboreal West Indian ground sloths.Rough Draft of Amendments to Cryptozoological Checklist located online Missionary Thomas Bridges originally believed the saapaim, a shaggy sheep-sized animal with claws reported from Tierra del Fuego in , could have been a sloth.Mysterious Fuegian creature: Saapaim | Patagonian Monsters Marine ground sloths At least two genera of giant sloth, Ahytherium of and the larger Thalassocnus of , were aquatic animals. Austin Whittall suggests that a late-surviving Patagonian species of the bulky Thalassocnus could explain several Patagonian lake monsters including lake bulls and the nahuelito. See also *Category:Theory: Living fossil - Ground sloth *Carnivorous ground sloth theory Notes and references Do you think it's possible that giant ground sloths could still live? Yes No Category:Proposed living fossils Category:South America Category:Central America Category:North America Category:Argentina Category:Bolivia Category:Brazil Category:Chile Category:Colombia Category:Ecuador Category:Peru Category:The Bahamas Category:Belize Category:Cuba Category:Dominican Republic Category:Haiti Category:Mexico Category:Trinidad and Tobago Category:United States Category:United States - Puerto Rico Category:Canada